Sadly,
many of Hawaii’s best-known jazz musicians have passed away, including Lyle
Ritz, Bill Tapia, and Betty Loo Taylor, but they were all probably too
swing-based for an experimental improvisor like Alex Zhang Hungtai to mesh well
with anyway. Regardless, he finds himself alienated and at loose ends when he
returns to his family’s former Hawaiian homeland. However, a Buddhist bed &
breakfast might be just the thing to center him in Christopher Makoto Yogi’s’ August at Akiko’s, one of several recent selections from the
International Film Festival Rotterdam that streams for a limited time on
Festivalscope’s public-facing VOD platform.
Indeed,
Zhang (playing a meta analog of himself) learns you cannot go home again, in just
about the saddest way possible. However, fate and his mother’s vague recommendation
takes him to Masuda Akiko’s Buddhist B&B/hostel/retreat. It turns out the
meditation and communion with nature she offers is what his soul needs. He even
starts volunteering for community service projects, but he still has some unfinished
spiritual business to tend to.
Although
Zhang plays half a dozen instruments in half a dozen styles, both under his
real name and the monikers “Dirty Beaches” and “Last Lizard,” throughout August he performs on tenor sax in a
free improvisational style influenced by Ornette Coleman. Frankly, it is nice
to see free jazz get some sympathetic screen time, but it is particularly apt,
because Yogi’s patient but sure-handed approach is a lot like the best of avant-garde
jazz. At times it feels diffuse and hazy, but it all comes together at the end
(which features an arresting performance by Zhang).
Zhang
is quiet and moody as his second self, but it is still an effectively sensitive
and lowkey performance. In contrast, Masuda is wonderfully charming and all
kinds of dynamic (albeit in a mostly quiet way) as herself, more or less.
Together, they share an unforced rapport that is pleasant to experience second
hand.
Cinematographer
Cho Eunsoo fully embraces the picturesque Big Island landscape, but in a deeper
way than mere picture postcard visuals. If you stick with it, Zhang’s music is
plaintive and devastatingly powerful. Plus, we also get to see the Hilo
Taishsoji Taeko Troop in performance, which is a cool bonus.
